Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The, “I Really Couldn’t Say at the Time,” Factor

I’ve noticed something that has probably been going on for a while, but was driven home to me as I was watching a few events that have happened in the news. I’m calling it the, “I Really Couldn’t Say at the Time” factor.

I found myself watching “Dateline,” not long ago with a segment about a woman named, Sarah Jones, who had at one time been a cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals. She later became a teacher in a high school, where she met a seventeen year-old student, who she began a sexual relationship with.

The county prosecutor got wind of the sexual relationship and began an investigation that lead to charges of statutory rape and culminated in her conviction. The aspect that really got my attention was that during Dateline’s ongoing interviews of her before the trail, she continually swore that nothing inappropriate ever went on. That was, until she later admitted that she had been having sex with the student. When Dateline asked her, “Why did you so strongly deny that anything had gone on right in front of our cameras?” She said something to the effect of, “Because there was an ongoing case in progress. I just couldn’t say I had done it when I was pleading, ‘not guilty.’”

And then we have Lance Armstrong. Did you see him on CNN shows such as Piers Morgan towards the end of 2012, vehemently (CNN.com’s word) denying any nefarious doping activities? He seemed to have gone on a number of television shows, under the guise of promoting his cancer organization’s work, to deny any doping of blood transfusion experiences. And now he’s admitted it to Oprah.

Now, I know this seems obvious; that when someone is in trouble, their attorney is often going to tell them not to admit that they have done wrongly in many cases. But when someone chooses to do open interviews with the media and so adamantly declares that they are innocent, well, you’d think that this kind of behavior is reserved for those who are truly innocent. You would think it’s the guy who was put in jail and really wasn’t responsible for a crime who would try to get his word out to the media as a sort of hail-Mary to get some attention brought to his situation.

And inversely, one would think that the person who really did commit a crime, and has been advised by their attorneys to claim, ‘not guilty,’ would keep a bit of a low profile. But this may be a growing trend. To flat out lie to whatever-million people on television. It’s so disappointing that Lance Armstrong and others would take it that far and would deny for that long, just to see if they could get away with it.